Loss in Both Worlds
by Golden Dragon Kayleth
Summary: [Ryka Returns! Sequel to As the Sky Cries] I don't know what happened back there. I can't explain it, really. Something's strange about that place, or maybe it only does strange things to me. What's going on? .::Code Lyoko Fanfic with one OC::.
1. New Challenges

((A/N – And so, more than a year after the creation of the first Ryka-Fic, comes to you a sequel. I can only hope it lives up to all the hype. Hope you guys like it, and I made a forum for chatting about this and Code Lyoko too. I like to talk too much.

Enjoy!  
Kayleth

Disclaimer: I don't own Code Lyoko. I did create Ryka and the plot.))

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I take a deep breath and look ahead. The scanner just sits there, waiting. I am uncertain about this. _If anything happens to me I think dad would lose it completely, _I think, taking another deep breath. Nervous cannot come close to describing me now.

"Ryka, is something wrong?" I hear a voice from the ceiling. Jeremie.

"No. I'm fine," I call back, taking a tentative step into the scanner. The other foot quickly follows. I don't want to be smashed in the door. "Jeremie," I call.

"Huh, yes Ryka?" he replies.

"Just…make sure nothing happens, okay?" I tell him, swallowing hard. My heart is a stone in my chest, but it beats on.

_Thump._

"Transfer, Ryka,"

_Thump, thump._

"Scanner, Ryka,"

Time freezes. My heart stops.

"Virtualization!"

White light floods everything. There is infinite space, and no space, and I am being pulled like dust in a vacuum tube. I have no idea where I am going. What if something went wrong? What if I'm stuck here? What if-?

Something starts to come into view. All views, all around me. There is too much to take in. Too many signals! My eyes snap shut. I impact the ground seconds later. A groan of pain escapes me, but I dare not open my eyes again. Not yet…

"Ryka?" I hear someone call.

"Is she alright?" Another voice.

"Jeremie, what happened?" Concern.

I have to do something. I open my eyes again.

Immediately I wish I hadn't. There is a strange, new world all about me. I feel dizzy and disoriented. I try to look at just one thing. I can't. Everything around me is screaming to be noticed and seen. I close my eyes and think about sitting up. As I try to sit I notice something else very, very wrong. My right arm isn't responding. I can't feel it at all. I reach with my left to find it, only, I can't.

"What happened?" I choke, pulling my legs, both of them, thankfully, closer to me. I use my left arm to sit up. My eyes are still closed. This world is so wrong.

"Jeremie?" I hear the first voice again. I can now tell Aelita is speaking. "Wh-….Where's Ryka's right arm?"

"I think I'm going to be sick…" I hear someone else mutter.

"It just looks so…strange." Another alarmed voice.

"Wh…What's going on? What about my arm?" I ask, reaching with my left again. I still can't locate my right arm. It's as if…it's not there. _Now__** I'm**__ going to be sick…_

"Bring her in! Something must have happened in the transfer!" Aelita calls.

"But nothing shows up on the screen. Everything should be fine. The card says all of her is there," I hear Jeremie protest.

"You can study the data-stuff later, just bring Ryka home, okay Einstein?" This time it's Odd.

I open my eyes again, hoping maybe _I_ can figure out what's wrong. My head still hurts, but the overload of images is starting to feel more…normal? I try to look, and I see the worried faces of Aelita, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd, all standing about me in a circle.

The worst part is, I am only "looking" towards Aelita…but I _see_ all of them.

A second later "Lyoko" is gone and I'm back to being dust inside of an angry vacuum. Except this time, the dust has a headache.

_Great…_


	2. I'm a WHAT now?

Things stop spinning

Things stop spinning. I open my eyes. The world spins a bit, but things seem to be back to normal. _What just happened?_ I wonder, sitting up in the scanner and rubbing my head.

It all comes back in a flood, and the scarily relieving thing is that I'm rubbing my head with my right hand. It's back, though where it went I have no idea. Since when do entire limbs disappear on vacation?

"Looks like you make it back all in one piece," I hear Yumi mention thankfully.

"Looks like…" I reply, standing up in the scanner and stretching. It feels nice, though why I'm stiff and sore I don't really know. Yumi looks unaffected by the return trip.

"The others are all upstairs waiting. Let's go," Yumi continues, heading for the elevator. I follow.

"You have any idea what happened back there?" I ask, wondering what her take on my first time in Lyoko was.

"Well…you fell when you were virtualized, which happens to everyone on their first trip, and then well…your right arm was just gone. The socket had skin over it, so it wasn't like some horror movie in that sense, but really…just one arm is kinda creepy." Yumi tells me, finishing as the doors opened.

"Okay Jeremie, I want some answers," I demand, probably a little too boldly, striding forward.

"Really Ryka, I don't know why your first trip was so rough. Everyone else just fell after being virtualized, but you…I don't really know what to tell you," Jeremie states, click clacking away on his keyboard.

"Do you think we could do a scan on her for a run down on her Lyoko form, Jeremie?" Aelita asks. "At least then we could at least know what's supposed to be happening to her there, and it wouldn't require us to send her back."

"Excellent suggestion, Aelita," Jeremie agrees with that fond look in his eye. Well…at least it sounded like a plan, for as little of it I understood. "Back down to the scanner room you go, then."

"Alright, just promise me you won't send me back to that freaky place without warning me first," I advise him, knowing that I'll be very, very miffed if he does otherwise.

"Got it!" I hear as a reply, and then the elevator doors close.

The scanners just sit there and mock me. 'You're afraid of us! Big, tough, scary Ryka is afraid of a widdle machine. Hahaha…' I'm starting to really hate them.

"You said, Jeremie!" I shout, stepping into the metal contraption. Why am I so irritable today? Oh yeah, that's right; I was left in a strange world with no visual capability and three limbs. _Fun_.

The scan begins; it _is_ a scanner after all. I tried to keep my eyes open, but the bright lights were just too much. Guess I'm back to being temporarily blind with all its perks and privileges. All of none.

The next long while was really boring. The scanner would go off, Jeremie would tell me to wait, the scanner would go on; repeat _eighty times!_

--

"You're a three limbed ninja with all encompassing vision."

"WHAT?!"

"I said-"

"Jeremie, she heard you the first time," Aelita mentions quietly, finding the expression on my face almost comical.

"Now, ….just, what?" I ask again, completely unable to comprehend what he just said.

"Well, that is your Lyoko-self in a nutshell," he adds, shrugging. He just couldn't accept I didn't understand what he meant.

"What Jeremie is trying to say," Ulrich starts, (_Please let him reiterate in English!_) "Is that on Lyoko you don't have a right arm, you can see everywhere at once, and you use short, dagger-like weapons to attack."

"…you're serious?" I ask rhetorically, staring at all of them. "Did _you_ program me this way?" I accuse Jeremie, pointing. "You think it's funny?"

"Honestly Ryka, I'm at a loss too. I don't know why you are the way you are. It just is…" he defends, hands up. I notice then that I have my hands clinched into fists.

"Sorry…" I mumble, sticking my hands in my pockets.

"Well, on Lyoko I'm a purple cat," Odd mentions with a huge grin, "Have no idea why, but I am."

"Well that's just swell…" I huff, kicking one foot out to vent. "So all of you get reasonable abilities and I'm left as a useless pile of mass that can't do anything."

"Sounds just about r-"

I am very glad someone elbows Odd in the back just then. Stupid cat.

"So what am_ I_ supposed to do about it?" I ask, still not really sure what all this is telling us.

"Learn your abilities I guess. Until then the others will cover for you, and you probably shouldn't go during attacks," Jeremie tells me.

"Yeah, I'd be completely worthless," I mope, the self pity is abound.

"You just need to learn. You'll be fine after that," Yumi smiles, placing a hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off.

She's about to try and say something else comforting when her mobile rings. She picks it up, makes a few vague comments and hangs up.

"I have to go," she states running off. Ulrich looks glum; the 'abandoned puppy in the rain' kind of glum. But what's there to be upset about?


	3. Secluded Forest

Aelita says I should go back to Lyoko yet

Aelita says I shouldn't go back to Lyoko yet. After she told me that she started having a coded debate with Jeremie right in front of me. All it meant to me was "You can't go on Lyoko, we won't tell you why just to bug you, and no, we won't give you any subtitles to our argument either."

It irritates me, but I suppose they know better than me. I decide to leave. They can have fun unbug…ing and rearranging the inner core frame mecha-…oh forget it. They can do it on their own. It's not my fault their Lyoko systems hate me.

I walk out into the factory, welcoming the light on my back as I walk out of its shadow. They aren't my problem any more. It's Saturday, so there is no pressure to go anywhere or do anything. I like life that way.

I wander back towards school, my stroll even paced. I've been spending a lot of time there lately. Home is…still hard to deal with. It's only once something is gone that you notice each and every little detail about how it affected your life. I can't ride to grocery markets in cars any more…that's certain.

Then there are all the little things. Only one card for Easter, one forced smile instead of two happy ones, one goodbye and one hello, and only one faint sound of snoring when you get up at three am to get a drink of water.

Little things…but very painful ones.

I decide to change my thought's path, as well as the one I'm walking on. People are yelling near the soccer field, and something clicks in my mind.

Ulrich would be playing in that soccer game today, but perhaps with one less pair of eyes watching him. That would explain the look when…

But I don't know for sure, so I head towards the field, wishing I had earplugs to block the ever increasing volume of screams and whooping cheers.

Right on schedule, Mr. Soccer Star comes speeding down the field with two guys following and two guys coming. Doesn't look so good for him…

I must have blinked, because the next moment the ball is hitting the net and people are screaming even louder. I hadn't thought that possible…

I turn towards the crowd. The game doesn't interest me. There are hoards of adoring fans waving their arms about and yelling. No one has their own voice. It's all one deafening roar.

I fail to see Yumi anywhere, though there is a good chance I missed her. Call it force of habit, but I look towards where I had encountered Yumi before. That was a dead end. What had I been expecting?

Yumi or no, the woods did look very inviting, and a lot quieter than my current location. So I walk off towards the shady trees, ready to get out of the sun. It's starting to get too warm for my liking.

As the light is banished and cool shadows touch my skin I sigh with relief. The noise of the game is fading behind me, and things are peaceful. A bird calls sadly in the distance, and a lone car is heard far away. I lean my back against the cool bark of a tree and slid to the ground. The shade has kept the nipping cold of morning and I welcome it gratefully.

Two pair of strong footfalls is not what I expect to hear so close to me. Perhaps they'll go away if I ignore them…

"That's it? Without a reason?" a male voice.

"Look, I don't want to deal with you right now. Leave me alone," a girl's voice. Familiar…

"So you come find me and then tell me to leave you alone?"

"I thought you wanted- but no, I was wrong. I can't-"

"Well then what did you find me for?"

"I…I don't know!"

They were close now. I stand up.

"Yumi!" he calls, and I hear feet pounding on the ground.

She runs right in front of me and skidded to a halt. Her eyes hold confusion and uncertainty, and then her pursuer arrives.

"Leave her alone, you jerk!" I snap at him, muscles tense.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he stops, holding his hands up. "She came to _me_,-"

"Sure, that's likely," I spat, glaring at him. Who was this guy?

"Ryka, no, don't get involved in this," I hear Yumi tell me, stepping out with more confidence at my side.

"Mind telling me what-" I start, but as it so happens, today is National Interruption Day.

"Yes, I mind. Just go, and don't tell-"

"I _knew_ this was about him!" the boy again. His dark eyes spark like cold fire. It sends a shiver up through me, but I would not back down from this…person.

Yumi just makes a face, then clinching one hand she stalks off. At least she has the sense to end this now.

"Look you," I tell him, letting my green eyes match his in a staring match. "If she tells you to leave her alone, leave her alone."

He doesn't say anything, blinks several times, not looking at me any more, and scoffs. "You'd do better to stay out of this." Then he starts away, black hair shivering in the harsh, cold wind.


End file.
